The Soul Mate

CHAPTER TWELVE

“What has gotten into you fată?” Xan had his hands up, palms facing front. I jumped forward, rocking from my heels to my toes. With my head down and eyes up, I slammed first my right fist into his right palm then my left fist into his left palm.

“Working off some pent up aggression?” He asked, grinning at me as he jumped backwards, beckoning me with two fingers. “Come and get me baby.”

I rolled my eyes and with my arm, wiped the sweat off my face. “Don’t tempt me.”

“You couldn’t take me,” he said, grinning, “I’m too much man for you Trin.”

“You’re too much something,” I agreed.

His already dark and deadly looking eyes grew even darker. He punched his own palm and put his hands up again. “Let’s go then, put some of the energy you waste talking my ear off with your useless Greek stories into your punches.”

I narrowed my eyes.

With his teeth bared, he shook his head causing his dreads to fly out, all around him.

“That’s it, get real angry Trin. Then come over here and show me just how angry you are. Maybe then you might get close to landing something resembling a decent punch.”

I ran at him with everything I had.

He sidestepped my first punch, and then easily blocked my next two, all with an infuriating grin on his face. On a whim I pretended to aim for his jaw and instead dealt him a solid blow in the stomach, then ducked. When he lunged for me, I spun out of his reach, only I wasn’t fast enough. His hand wrapped around my arm in a bruising grip.

I had a small window of time before he was going to crush me to him, bringing me down hard on the ground. This had happened too many times already and I was ready to go straight to Hades and take Persephone’s place before I let it happen again.

As Xan turned me toward him, I quickly brought up my knee, deftly turned my hip over and snapped my leg outward from the knee delivering the deadly strike against his shin with the ball of my foot.

Eyes wide, tottering on one foot, Xan fell to the ground. His hold on me weakened and his hand slid down my arm. Realizing what was happening, he tightened his grip as it was about to slide past my wrist. With one hard pull he yanked me down with him. I fell in an unceremonious sprawl on top of him.

“Who showed you how to do a roundhouse?” He gasped.

I giggled. “Marko.”

He flipped me over, pinning me underneath his massive body, bringing me face to face with the cynical curve of his lips, the sharp pull of his cheekbones and the exotic slant of his dark alluring eyes.

My pulse quickened.

My mouth dried.

My body heated.

And none of it was magically induced.

I pushed at his chest suddenly terrified of what was happening to me. “Get off me!”

“And if I don’t?” He asked, his tone nonchalant.

I might turn to Jell-O. “I’ll scream.”

He laughed, the sound deep and throaty and full of pure masculine dominance, daring me to scream as loud as I liked. “Afraid I might try and kiss you again fată?”

Oh Goddesses.

I licked my lips. “Pp...Please don’t.”

His grip on my biceps flexed. His mouth thinned.

“Right.” He jumped up and offered me a hand, lifting me to my feet. “I had forgotten how horrible it was.”

Actually, I’d been so caught up in my reaction to Xan that I’d forgotten how awful that kiss had been. I’d never before experienced the conscious desire of wanting someone. Not really, not like this. With Gerik I always felt like I’d suddenly ran right into a brick wall of lust. This was the opposite, softer, giving me time to access my feelings.

This must have been what other girls had been acting so freakishly crazy about my entire life; the reason for their obsessive behavior about hair and makeup and finding the perfect outfit. Now their endless conversations about boys, boys and more boys that I could never seem to find any interest in, made perfect sense.

My stomach did a funny little tap dance and I had a fleeting worry about my own hair.

“So…” Xan began, “How about some live rounds?”

I looked up, surprised.

“Gotcha!” He said and took off running.

“Xan!” I screamed, running after him. “I’m so going to kill you!”

He grinned over his shoulder, “That would mean you have to catch me first!”

If I’d had to guess at how long it was going to take Gerik to show his face and beg forgiveness from me for being a man-whore, I’d of said a day or two. I’d based this guess on how’d he’d never before been able to leave me in peace for more than a few hours at a time.

I’d never of guessed he’d actually avoid me for almost two entire weeks.

I had just settled down near a low burning fire for reading hour with Alana’s three little ones, Adi, Daniella and little Benyamin Jr. Hockey’s little sister, Simza, and the Moldoveanu twin’s Pali and Mala. We were reading one of Maisera’s books, an older version of Grimms’ Fairy Tales, the leather bound cover cracked and worn.

“Can we talk?” Gerik asked, interrupting the woodsman’s assault on Snow White.

“I’m busy.”

“I’ll wait, yeah?”

“I’ll be awhile.”

“Trinity,” He pleaded with me. I looked up at him, noticing the small black and blue marks on his neck. From Onyx. Jealously, immediately followed by anger, flooded me. I couldn’t take much more of this. Here he was, more than likely wanting to talk me back into our dysfunctional relationship when he was wearing physical evidence from his other one.

In the end it was the tired, defeated look about him, the fact that his hair wasn’t braided and the dark circles under his eyes, that did me in.

Despite my anger and all my confusion about us, seeing him hurting, hurt me. I nodded my answer and continued reading. And reading. I read until most of the children had gotten bored and wandered off. Gerik had to have known that I was intentionally making him wait as long as possibly but he didn’t say a word. He continued to sit patiently as I read story after story until Alana came by to pick up Benyamin Jr., who was asleep in my lap.

I closed the book and let out a long, suffering sigh.

“What do you want?”

“Can we talk somewhere private?

I folded my arms across my chest. “Here is good. Plenty of people around to witness magically forced orgasms.”

Gerik swung towards me, his face red, his nostrils flaring. His eyes were white, no slow bleed of colors; it had been instant, just like his anger.

“I would never hurt you,” He said, glaring at me. “I was trying to show you what is between us, what more could be between us if you would just let go.”

Was there something substantial I needed to let go of? Or was this a metaphorical jump I was supposed to take? Gerik never made any sense when he started talking about us.

“Why won’t you just trust me?” He spat out. “And stop blocking me!”

Blocking him?

“Oh, I don’t know,” I murmured, “Maybe because trusting you would require you not lying to me about things like SLEEPING WITH ONYX!”

He had obviously prepared himself for this very discussion. The mention of her name and the fact that I had started yelling didn’t seem to faze him at all. I tried to reign in my steadily rising anger, hating that I felt anything at all about Gerik and his girlfriend when I didn’t want to.

If I agreed to “let go” as he put it, would he keep her as his mistress?

“What about her?” He asked me, suddenly a picture of calm.

I huffed. “You tell me? Why did you lie to me about her? If you want to be with her then just be with her! Why bother with me at all? I’m not like you, I don’t have magic and the Gods know how hard I’ve been fighting this thing between us! You say we are special, Gerik, but what is so special about us? Our deranged little love triangle?”

“You don’t understand!” He roared, reaching for me. “It’s so hard having you here and not being able to be with you! Really truly with you!” Grabbing my shoulders, he roughly pulled me toward him, until we were nose to nose.

“You’re everything Trinity, EVERYTHING!” He shook me violently making my teeth rattle. “I need her to… or…I don’t know...she’s-”

Wearing a tank top today had been an epic mistake. His hands were on me and heat was pouring through me from his touch. I fell limply forward pressing my face against his and moaned. Gerik grabbed my hips and in one swift move brought me forward, over him. I wrapped my legs around his waist as he stood.

“I’m taking you back to my place,” He said. “We’re going to finish this. Right now.”

I mumbled something in response, too busy pulling up the bottom of his t-shirt in order to caress bare skin to worry about talking.

“Damn,” He growled, as I went for his neck. “Don’t stop.”

Stop? I wouldn’t dream of it. Gerik was all I wanted. He was my everything. My life before him was nothing; a faint memory at best. He was my present and my future. He was my forever.

“Move,” Gerik ground out harshly. He’d stopped walking and I wiggled against him, whimpering. Why in all the Gods was he stopping?

“Looks like Trinity is going to be missing practice today,” A familiar voice said, laughing.

Something niggled in the back of my mind. Practice?

Gerik growled loudly, the sound reverberated through his entire body, vibrating against mine. I mewled loudly, grabbed his chin and thrust my tongue into his mouth. He responded immediately.

“How ‘bout I get that door for you Gerik? You look a little busy?” Several people laughed, causing cold slivers of embarrassment began to worm their way into my overheated body.

Suddenly, I knew something wasn’t right.

Then I was falling, falling from Gerik’s arms and onto his bed. Contact was broken. Oh Gods dammit. I was furious. More than ready to kill the Viking on top of me.

I punched Gerik in the stomach, hurting myself and not moving him an inch from his predatory position above me. Sore now, I cradled my hand against me.

“You’re promises are nothing but crap!” I shouted.

I felt sickened, suffocated and… furious by my circumstances. This wasn’t right. I was sure of it now. This wasn’t love, it wasn’t even a prelude to love. This was twisted and hurtful. It was wrong on so many levels, full of lies and bereft of reality.

Gray eyes bled to blue. “Trinity, please…”

“No.” My voice stayed firm despite the budding emotions rising inside of me at the sound of panic in his voice.

“No,” I repeated, more for myself than him. I was so Gods damn weak in his presence.

“This isn’t right; this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. This is magic, or whatever, but it’s not real. This isn’t how people end up together.”

“Not real, yeah?” His voice raised. “What keeps those monsters out of camp then? What killed that thing attacking Xan?” He thumped his chest with his fist. “I was born with magic inside of me. Are you saying I’m not real?”

“But I won’t ever know just how real any of it is, will I?” I shrieked. “You won’t explain any of it to me? You won’t explain what’s wrong with us! Do you really expect me to just blindly trust you?”

His eyes dropped and I knew then that he would never tell me what was going on between us. He would protect the secrets of his people even at the cost of my sanity. We could marry and have children who would be privy to information that I never would be. I would never truly know Gerik.

“We’re done here.” I pushed at his chest. “Get off me.”

“We’ll never be done.” The words were a whisper across my senses. I hadn’t actually heard them, I’d felt them. Could still feel them actually.

We locked eyes.

Words can be interpreted many ways depending on how they are spoken. Gerik’s last statement to me could have been spoken as a beautiful promise, but instead he’d blackened those words and used them to threaten me. Several tense heartbeats passed before he let me up.

“You’re mine, Trinity,” He called out as I shut his bedroom door behind me. “You already know that though, yeah?”

Hands shaking I walked out of his trailer and came face to face with Stevo, Hockey, Shandor, Marko and… Xan.

“Trinity!” Stevo jumped up from the picnic tabled and rushed up to me, his face wrought with worry. “Are you okay?

“She’s fine,” Shandor drawled. “Just a little overexerted is all.” He laughed. “Right fată?”

Horrified that they witnessed what had just happened, I ran from them. I ran straight across the living lot, and directly to my trailer. Locking both doors behind me, I crawled into bed.

“You’re mine.” Gerik had said.

Possessive much?

Well, I didn’t accept.

I belonged to no one.

The next afternoon I went to practice full of trepidation and wasn’t surprised when Xan wasn’t there. He had told me that if I wasn’t serious about practice not to ever come near him again. Watching me crawl all over Gerik like a cat in heat while I was supposed to be practicing was probably enough reason for him to believe I wasn’t taking it seriously.

Then there were the feelings I’d experienced in his presence. How in the world was I going to deal with that?

I came across him leaving Drina’s trailer with a leather satchel of foul smelling herbs.

“Have fun?” He gave me a bitter smile.

I closed my eyes, embarrassed. Why Xan had to keep finding me in compromising situations, I didn’t know.

“I’m really sorry about missing practice.”

“I told you if you weren’t serious, not to waste my time fată.”

“No!” I grabbed his arm when he started to walk away from me. “I am serious! Please, you don’t understand!”

It looked as if he didn’t want to understand from the way he was frowning at the grip I had on his arm.

I unwillingly released him. I very badly needed someone to talk to and Becki was no longer an option. She’d barely said two words to me since we’d equally insulted each other. Not that I’d seen her long enough to tell her I was sorry. No longer sleeping at home, she had been ditching her chores most days as well. Xan however, felt the same bias about magic that I did and maybe somehow that could work in my favor.

“There is so much more going on with me and Gerik than you think,” I told him.

He made a disgusted face. “And this concerns me how?”

“It doesn’t, but I need someone to talk to and I don’t have anyone else.”

He laughed. “So I’m last on the list, huh fată?”

“No!” I blew out a breath. “This thing with me and Gerik…it’s not normal. It has to be magic. But because of who I am, I’m not privy to it. I just get to feel all the horrible after effects without understanding what’s happening to me.”

I watched Xan study me, wishing I had some sort of clue as to what was going on inside of his head.

“Xan!” I stomped my foot. “He has some kind of control over me!”

He just continued to stare at me, rolling his bottom lip between his teeth.

An idea stuck me. The last time Xan had kissed me it had it been awful for me. There had been an unseen force that had been trying to push him away, making me feel… wrong. If I could just show him…

“Xan!” I shouted needlessly. He was half a foot away, staring straight at me. Standing up on my tiptoes, I wrapped my arms around his neck and crushed my mouth to his.